Ship Falmouth, Cpt. Isaac Biddlecomb, commanding. 30th Octr. 1777
To the Honbl. The Marine Committee of the Continental Congress
Gentlemen:
I regret that I have not until this moment had the Leisure to take pen in hand and inform the Committee of the events that have transpired since my departure from Boston on 20th September of this year. I trust that the following account will make clear why I have found correspondence quite beyond my ability until now.
As aforementioned, I departed Boston on September 20 in command of the Continental brig-of-war Charlemagne with orders to make the best of my way in said brig to Philadelphia, where I was to assume command of the frigate Falmouth building there. I sailed from Boston in the company of two privateers of that city, viz. Horatio Gates and Vengeance. On 24th September with Great Egg Harbor bearing west and about half a league distant, we encountered a British sloop-of-war, which I believe to be the Merlin, since lost on the Delaware River. Being as our squadron was of tolerable force, I cleared for action and signaled to the privateers to engage the enemy. This they did, up until the moment the very first shots were fired, at which time they deserted us on a lee shore in the face of a much superior enemy. Despite engaging in a spirited resistance for the length of half a glass, I was forced to drive Charlemagne ashore, at which time we burned the vessel to prevent her falling into enemy hands.
Not content with the destruction of our ship, the British sloop-of-war sent a party of Marines and Sailors in pursuit of our people, but they were driven off by a defense organized by Marine Lt. Elisha Faircloth, whose exemplary leadership and activity I wish to acknowledge. In the course of beaching the vessel and the subsequent fight, we suffered six men wounded and four killed. Among those killed was Lt. David Weatherspoon of the Continental Navy, a most promising young officer.
Subsequent to the loss of Charlemagne I acquired a schooner in Great Egg Harbor, and in said vessel, the ship’s Company continued to make the best of its way to Philadelphia. Upon arriving in the Delaware River, we discovered that the city had been taken by Genrl Howe, and that a significant fleet of the Royal Navy was in the process of securing the Bay and River. This despite stiff resistance from Continental forces as well as state militia and Pennsylvania State navy under the command of Commdr John Hazelwood.
Through an unfortunate circumstance, the schooner in which we had sailed was lost, necessitating myself and the men under my command to take up one of the row galleys of the Pennsylvania State Navy, which had been deserted by its crew. In said galley we were able to render material aid in the effort to prevent the Royal Navy’s progress toward the city.
While in the process of rendering said aid, word was received through sundry means that the frigate Falmouth had been safely launched and towed clear of the city before Genrl Howe’s forces were able to claim it as a prize. This was accomplished through the efforts of one Malachi Foote, Master Shipwright, and a contingent from the Fifth Pennsylvania Regiment, who were assigned to protect the vessel (though truthfully they might also have been deserters, their status never having been made entirely clear). Mr. Foote was regrettably killed in action defending the frigate against an attempt by the Royal Navy to capture it. In addition to preventing the frigate’s capture, my men and those of the Fifth Pennsylvania were able to make a prize of the Royal navy sloop Sparrowhawk in which the cutting-out party had sailed.
With Genrl Howe in possession of the city, and Admirl Howe’s incursion meeting with regrettable success, I considered it prudent to remove Falmouth from the river lest she become trapped in the like manner of the Continental frigates Effingham and Washington. To accomplish this, we undertook a ruse de guerre, viz. we took Falmouth under tow of the sloop Sparrowhawk, giving the frigate the appearance of a prize of war, and thus sailed and towed her through the Enemy’s lines and clear of the Delaware Bay. The bearer of this report can inform you as to our present location, which I dare not commit it to paper lest this falls into the hands of enemies of this Country.
We reached this place on the 28th of this month in good order. The prize taken at Philadelphia, H.M. armed sloop Sparrowhawk, is currently…
Isaac Biddlecomb paused, his pen hovering over the page. He frowned and lowered the tip of the quill toward the paper, then paused again. He sighed in exasperation, tossed the pen on the desk, and leaned back.
Ah…damn…damn his eyes, he thought.
How to report the loss of Sparrowhawk? A well-armed, well fit-out sloop, of little consequence to the Royal Navy but a valuable addition to the Continental service. And worth a tolerable amount of prize money to Biddlecomb and the Charlamagnes.
Falmouths…Biddlecomb corrected himself. The Charlemagne was lost, driven up on a beach and put to the torch just a few miles from where he sat in the Falmouth’s great cabin. The men who had survived that, who had survived the fight on the beach and the trip up the Delaware Bay and the fight on the frigate’s decks, who had sailed through the British lines back to Great Egg Harbor on the New Jersey shore, they were the Falmouths now.
That would take some getting used to. The loss of his beloved Charlemagne would take some getting used to.
Sparrowhawk…
She had been stolen from him, it was that simple. Angus McGinty, formerly sergeant of the Fifth Pennsylvania and, apparently, formerly of some naval service or other, British or Continental, Biddlecomb did not know, had taken command of the sloop during their clandestine run down the Delaware River and Bay. He had kept company with them right into Great Egg Harbor before putting the sloop about and standing out to sea, leaving Biddlecomb to shout impotently in his wake.
He could picture the big Irishman standing at the tiller, waving his hat in farewell, his thick red hair lashing in the wind, that stupid smile on his face. Biddlecomb had disliked McGinty from the start, distrusted him. He knew the man’s sort: back-slapping, raucous laughing, as sincere and reliable as a French courtesan.
And yet…
When the British cutting-out party had come over Falmouth’s side, McGinty had fought like a demon. Biddlecomb had caught sight of him in the fray, wielding his bayonet-tipped musket like it was a rapier, cutting a swath through the red-coated marines. He had not shirked from that fight, not at all. And he had been genuinely grieved by the death of Malachi Foote, or so it seemed, which was not the reaction Biddlecomb would have expected from a callous lack-wit.
The very idea of sailing Falmouth through the enemy fleet as if she was a British prize was based on a trick McGinty had played to bring the men under his command out from behind enemy lines, a bold move when McGinty could have just as easily abandoned them all. And when they were underway, with Biddlecomb commanding Falmouth and McGinty and his men aboard Sparrowhawk, the whore’s son could have deserted the frigate at any time, just dropped the hawser and sailed away. But he did not. He had waited until Falmouth was in safe harbor before…
“Before stealing my damned ship,” Biddlecomb said out loud, the anger flaring up once again. But he was loath to write those words in his official report. If McGinty was caught, and found guilty of that offense, he would hang for sure. And Biddlecomb was not sure he wanted that. If they could get Falmouth to sea, there was always the chance that he could hunt McGinty down himself, reclaim his prize, and deal with the man as he, and not the naval committee, saw fit.
And, of course, Biddlecomb did not care to admit to anyone, and certainly not to the Marine Committee, that he had been played for a fool. In some dark and unexamined part of his mind, he understood that though he chose not to dwell on it.
He sighed again, picked up the pen, dipped the tip in the inkwell, and continued.
Sparrowhawk is now patrolling the coast hereabouts to prevent our being surprised, in our current vulnerable state, by British cruisers. At such time, as the officers of Falmouth and I feel she is no longer required for this duty we will apply to the Honbl. Committee as to their wishes regarding the disposition of the vessel.
Or I’ll just tell the honorable committee that she’s gone missing, Biddlecomb thought. Captured… sunk…who knows?
It is with pleasure I report that the Continental frigate Falmouth is currently in safe harbor, and has aboard her most of her rigging and sails, and is lacking only ballast and the remainder of her spars (her fore lower mast and foreyard being in place) to be in all respects ready for sea. That said, we are still lacking in a great many things required for the ship to be of any service to Congress and the country, viz. guns and powder, shot, victuals and water and all manner of gunner, boatswain and carpenter stores. As to men, we have now but a quarter of the ship’s compliment. It is my intention to remain here, at the place indicated to you by the bearer of this report, until such time as the wishes of the Honbl. The Marine Committee are made known to me.
In closing I wish to recognize the outstanding service of the fine officers under my command. Lt. Elisha Faircloth, aforementioned, has done great honor to the service and acted with uncommon bravery and intelligence. The same may be said for Mr. Samuel Gerrish, Midshipman, and Mr. Benjamin Sprout, boatswain. All of the petty officers and men late of the Charlemagne did notable service in seeing Falmouth to safety, and I would recommend them all to your consideration. In particular I must mention Mr. Ezra Rumstick, first officer, whose courage, steadfastness and service in this late affair have been of more value than I can rightly describe. Mr. Rumstick has rendered greater service to these United States in her current struggles than any man known to me, and I would recommend him for promotion and command, which would be of inestimable benefit to the nation, if ever such opportunity presents.
Biddlecomb smiled at that. Rumstick would not be pleased to see what he had written. There was not an untrue word in it, but Rumstick was not a man on the look-out for promotion and glory. Still, Biddlecomb could do no less than recommend him for it. He put the pen to the paper once more and wrote, I am, [&c.], Cap t I. Biddlecomb.
He set the pen down and stared blankly at the great stream of words he had scrawled down the length of the page; stiff, formal language put down in an untidy script. Why doesn’t anyone just write a report in the same way they speak? he wondered.
He was not proud of his penmanship. He had had little formal schooling—educated by his mother when he was a young boy, and later on shipboard, where he had been taught by whatever master or mate had the time and inclination to help him further his studies. Such men looked on writing the way they looked on splicing rope or caulking seams: something to be done correctly and well, but not with any particular flourish.
In the years since, Biddlecomb had read widely, from Shakespeare to treatises on navigation or natural science, and had done much to compensate for that earlier lack of learning. But no amount of study could fix the habits of penmanship ingrained in his youth.
He shook his head slightly, pushing those pointless considerations aside, and turned back to his more immediate concerns. He had finally found the time to write a report to the Marine Committee, but he was not entirely certain where the committee was to be found. They, and all the Continental Congress, had been in Philadelphia when Biddlecomb sailed from Boston a month earlier. But they were certainly not in Philadelphia now, not with the Brothers Howe in all but complete control of the city. So where to send the report?
He had heard several rumors. Some thought the Congress had moved to Annapolis, some thought to Bordentown. Some said they were making for Boston and some that they had scattered in panic. Those were all possibilities, though Biddlecomb considered Bordentown to be the most likely, and certainly, it was the rumor he heard most often. So he would find some trustworthy soul among the local militia and pay him to carry the report to Bordentown, and if the committee was not there, then the man would just have to find out where they bloody were.
He moved his eyes from the paper to a silver locket that lay on the desk nearby, and without thought, he picked it up and flipped it open. Inside was a miniature of his wife, Virginia. He felt a minor convulsion inside as he stared at the portrait. She had given it to him a few years before, and with all the time he spent at sea, he wondered if he hadn’t spent more time looking at that than he had looking at her actual face.
The tiny painting was well done. The artist had captured her flawless features, the lovely proportions of cheek and forehead and neck, the profusion of dark brown hair. He had caught a hint of her beauty, but Biddlecomb did not think any painting could ever catch more than just a hint. Her real beauty was in the vitality and spirit, which radiated out of her, and which could not be rendered in static oil paint and canvas.
Biddlecomb moved his eyes to the other half of the locket. At first, it had been blank, but now there was a second face there, baby Jack Biddlecomb, with his round, red cheeks and tuft of dark hair. It was a good painting of a baby, but whether it was a good painting of Jack, Isaac was not sure. It was hard to distinguish the portrait of one baby from another, and this painting of a dark-hair, pink-skinned infant might be his and Virginia’s, or it might not. He was not sure he could tell.
But that did not diminish the pleasure he felt in looking at the picture. The pleasure, and the stab of loneliness and pain.
Biddlecomb pressed his lips together and snapped the locket shut. He set it down, pushed the report to the Marine Committee to one side, and picked up a fresh piece of paper.
Virginia was in Philadelphia, as far as he knew. He would write to her, give her a hint at least of what had befallen him over the past month, or so. How he would then get the letter to her, in a city occupied by the British, he did not know. But that was a problem for another time.
He dipped the tip of the quill in the ink and wrote, My Beloved Virginia, and he felt the stab again, the loneliness and pain. He stared at the words. There was only one thing that prevented him from going completely mad, he knew, and that was that the demands of his station, the constant tumble from one crisis to another, prevented him from dwelling too long on the misery of his separation from wife and child.
And as he stared at the name Virginia, written at the top of that blank sheet, and let those thoughts swirl around in his head, he heard footsteps on the deck above. He looked up. He heard a few sharp but muffled words, more footsteps, coming aft this time. And he knew that once again his private dwellings had come to an end.